Bob Ford: Dodgers' GM knows a good story

Ned Colletti, if the Dodgers advance to the World Series, could be baseball's executive of the year, and while he might not actually be the best general manager in the game, he's at least the best one who ever ghostwrote a weekly column with Bill Barber.

"Looking back now, that was an amazing time," Colletti said this week. "The Journal was an incredible place and my time in Philadelphia was unforgettable."

It turned out to be a very lucky stopping place for Colletti. He was the hockey writer for the Journal when it folded in December 1981, just as Phillies manager Dallas Green was about to decamp for his new job as general manager of the Chicago Cubs. Green took along Colletti and Bob Ibach, another suddenly unemployed Journal writer, to be his public-relations team. Green could have filled a bus with all the Philly connections he dragged to Chicago; scouts, players, coaches . . . the writers appeared to be just additional passengers.

For Colletti, who grew up in suburban Chicago, it was something more than that, though.

"My dad was dying of cancer in Chicago, and it gave me a chance to come back home and spend his last months with him," Colletti said. "The paper had folded; my wife and I had a newborn son. I had been making $18,000 a year at the paper, and I had a $750-a-month mortgage in Lansdowne, with 18 percent interest. The Cubs offered me $14,000 a year, and I thought about it for a week and thought about my dad, and I took it."

Ned Louis Colletti Sr. died in April 1982, just four months after his son started working in baseball and his grandson, Ned Louis III - "I named him after my dad, not after me," Colletti says - came kicking into an uncertain world.

It was an ending and a starting place for Colletti. He became best friends with another of the Philadelphia ex-pats, third-base coach John Vukovich, and it was an exciting time as Green wire-brushed the barnacles from the Cubs' organization.

A couple of years in, Green asked Colletti to help with the preparation for arbitration cases and with contract negotiations. After that, Colletti worked his way into the baseball administration side of the game, learning scouting from the ground up and getting a hand in player evaluation. His role and reputation grew, and Colletti was hired by the San Francisco Giants in 1995 and was named their assistant general manager two years later.

"I never really had a sponsor, but I always had people who were willing to provide me with opportunities for whatever reason," Colletti said. "In Chicago, Vukovich was one of the guys who really looked out for me. Little by little over the years, I got more involved."

After nearly a decade of working closely with San Francisco GM Brian Sabean during a successful spell for that franchise, Colletti was hired by the Dodgers as general manager, stepping into an office that had a revolving door at the front. He became the fifth full-time GM in eight years, and a very loud clock began to tick on him, too.

The Dodgers played well and made the playoffs in 2006, Colletti's first season on the job; had a disappointing record last year; and then appeared to be drifting toward nowhere until some late additions - including outfielder Manny Ramirez - and some returns from injury got the team going just in time.

"We all thought the club was better than it played, but we were inconsistent," Colletti said. "On a given day, we could play with anybody, and on another given day, we had no chance."

The Dodgers had four shortstops before Angel Berroa was acquired to hold down the position until Rafael Furcal recovered from injury, and were shaky at third base until Casey Blake arrived before the trade deadline as well. Getting Blake allowed the Dodgers to move Blake DeWitt to second base, and suddenly a disastrous infield situation was solidified.

Along the way, with a lot of credit to manager Joe Torre for keeping the team together, veterans like Jeff Kent, Nomar Garciaparra, Juan Pierre and Andruw Jones were moved aside to make way for younger players.

It wasn't a pretty process. The Dodgers were five games under .500 on Aug. 29 before going 19-8 the remainder of the season. They capped that by sweeping the Cubs in the division series and now return to Citizens Bank Park to deal with the memory of a four-game sweep that was part of their August swoon.

Colletti will have other memories to deal with. He hasn't been back to Philadelphia since Vukovich died of brain cancer just before the start of the 2007 season. There is a picture of Vukovich on his office desk and one of the "VUK" patches worn by the Phils last year. He sees those every day.

"I've had the opportunity to come back, but I just couldn't," Colletti said. "It's going to be an emotional thing for me. One of the first things I'm going to do is walk to that Wall of Fame area in center field and look at his plaque."

So Ned Colletti is back in town in time for the hockey season once more. There are other things on his mind right now. He promises to remember the journey, though. Philadelphia has been both a beginning and an end for him in the past. This week, it will be one of those again, but it's too soon to say which.